What animal dug this burrow?

[rod5591]

It is more than a month later. It was raining and I walked out into the chicken yard to close up the coops for the evening. As I neared, I saw movement, and into focus came the biggest, fattest Norwegian brown rat as i have ever seen. It was so fat, it must have been a pregnant female. I immediately set out 3 snap traps baited with cheese and peanut butter. Come morning i will find out if I have reduced the local population of fat rodents by one or two....

2 days later, nothing but empty traps!

 

[LeslieS]

It is more than a month later. It was raining and I walked out into the chicken yard to close up the coops for the evening. As I neared, I saw movement, and into focus came the biggest, fattest Norwegian brown rat as i have ever seen. It was so fat, it must have been a pregnant female. I immediately set out 3 snap traps baited with cheese and peanut butter. Come morning i will find out if I have reduced the local population of fat rodents by one or two....

Those things are nasty. Find an exterminator, if you can, one with rat terriers. They are the most humane method. I heard that in one year a pair of rats can become 2000. You don't want to mess around!!

 

[NewBoots]

2 days later, nothing but empty traps!

I hear if they are getting trap smart to put the traps out with bait but not set so they get used to coming for dinner and don't expect the party favor.

 

[RenoHuskerDu]

We have some of those out in our fields, no idea what lives there. But if there one by our chickens I would damn sure find out.
No rats around here, could be armadillos, possums, coons, foxes.

 

[rod5591]

Caught the first rat. I wish I could say I caught it in one of my traps, but this is not the case:

I was digging a corner post hole for a new Chicken Yard. I wanted it 3 1/2 feet deep, but 2 1/2 feet down, I hit a rock which really impeded my progress. Nightfall approached and I called it a day. That night and all the next day it rained. Today I went to complete the post hole. At the bottom was about 5 inches of water and one drowned, bedraggled juvenile sized rat. Pardon me for not posting a photo.

Now I am wondering how many rats there are, if one fell into a post hole and drowned?

The other traps seem to be licked clean of peanut butter without being set off. So I have ordered more traps and watched several UTube videos posted by exterminators. As soon as it stops raining, I am going wear gloves to protect from scent transfer, then tie pecans to the trap with dental floss. The rat will have to tug it to get the nut, which should set off the trap.

I will have to place the traps in the evening after the birds are locked in their house, and pick up the traps in the morning before letting them out.

 

[Howard E]

If you are supporting a colony of rats, no amount of trapping is going to make a dent in the overall population. At best, traps are used to monitor the situation once you have things under control. And even then, it has to be the right kind of trap. In the case of a big brown rat, a standard Victor wooden rat trap may not do much more than bonk him on the nose.

Spend some time here, including all three videos, so you know what you are up against.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/rat-control-101.1283827/

 

[RenoHuskerDu]

Certain breeds of dogs track and kill rodents. Terriers come to mind. We had a Westie that would dispatch mice and rats within 10 seconds. Our other dog was a Pinscher, which is not known for rodent control, but he too would bite then drop the rodents repeatedly, then come running back to us as if to ask if he'd been a good boy. The Westie may have taught him.

So if you love dogs this might be a long term solution. I've also seen our cat drag in a dying rat bigger than she was, but that was less frequent.

 

[rod5591]

We’ve caught 6 rats now in 4 days. None were in the chicken yard. There were several sprung traps with nothing caught....not sure what did that

 

[rod5591]

I finally had to distribute rat poison around the outside of their run-- bright green pellets that smelled of fish oil, and that seemed to have done the trick. After the infestation was gone, I went around to pick up all the remaining pellets of poison. After that, I set out rat poison in bait stations that chickens and pets can not access. I haven't seen a rat in months, and it is the height of summer. Only problem is, I may have not picked up all of the poison pellets, and one of my older hens just ate one I believe. She has been acting lethargic, and I saw he poop bright green, the color of the rat poison. The antidote is Vitamin K- does anyone know how I would apply vitamin K to a poisoned hen?

 

[cmom]

Probably by a dropper and put some in her beak. I use the rat bait stations that nothing but the rats can get into. If you don't find any dead rats around, they probably went into their tunnels and died.